Often Kind
by august
Summary: Chakotay visits Janeway's mother


Often Kind  
by august  
cNov 1999  
  
PG. Paramount owns Trek. I own the craziness.  
Lyrics used from a rare Counting Crows song 'Lightning'. Find a good bootlegger to get a copy.  


  
  
  
  
we're crazy but often kind often kind  
we rage together in violence blind  
Together and then alone then alone  
we race in small circles home  
  


but these days  
were lit by lightning  
  
  
  
  
I have coffee with your mum, she seems so glad to see me. I avoided this moment for as long as I could; tried to pretend I didn't owe you - her - the courtesy of a visit. She doesn't live in Indiana anymore, which surprised me. From what you had said about the family home, I had assumed it was a steadfast location in the Janeway family. But the messages transmission came in from the old town of St Petersburg. 

When I flashed up the message on my vid-screen, I had steeled myself for a older version of you. But she looked nothing like you, and I think that that shook me more. I had been quietly reassuring myself with the fact that I would recognise a guesture, a facial mannerism, the inflection of a word. There was nothing. 

Things have been particularly hard for Phoebe and your mother, and for the first time I think I am glad that you are not alive to see it. I think one of the reasons I have been avoiding them is because of those inevitable questions. Is it true? Was she like that? Did she go crazy? 

What could I tell them, that they didn't know already? What could I tell them, that they would want to hear? It's been my experience that people who insist on the 'full picture' rarely have any conception of what this full picture is. 

In the later years, they would say that you were crazy. The 'Fleet went through your -- our logs ... they wrote papers on 'command stress' based on your breakdowns. This was untrue, it always had been. You were no the mad woman in the attic, driven insane by power and isolation. You were Kathryn, and everything that went with that. 

I've tried to explain to people -- to the board, to the reporters, that it wasn't like they suggest. That we all went a little crazy out there. God knows there was enough proof to substantiate that. B'Elanna's scars, Tom's demotion, Neelix's anxiety. Tuvok's death. We all wore it a little differently out there. 

I was pretty sure, however, that hearing about their daughter's descent into insanity was the last thing they could have conceived. It had been a kind of agreement amongst the crew; she got us home and that's what we would remember. None of us talked of her peculiarities . . the midnight prowlings of the ship, the complete isolation. To date, so far as I know, only one crew member has 'gone public' with a different story, and the reputation of the publishers precluded any serious discussion by the public. 

So we smile and break our way out of conversations. Or we end politely with 'things were different out there.' We keep it all in the family and we never, ever speak of it to each other. But it's a selfish motivation, you see. It's not about upholding your honor, about protecting your name. It's about the fact that we all lived with it. We all made small promises to ourselves, small justifications. If I forget about it this time, then . . . 

And that if you were 'crazy', then we let it be so. And that is a hell of a thing to live with. 

Your mum sets down cake and says "tell me about her, Chakotay." Does she want to hear about the void? About Lessing, who to this day I believe you would have killed? About the fact that the only person you let close to you in ten years was Kashyk, the murderer? 

That you stopped speaking of Phoebe and Mark and your dogs in the end. That you crawled the walls of the room you were in. That the last time I visited, they had you on so much medication you couldn't remember my name? 

I have coffee with your mum. She wants a truth that I can't tell. There is a storm outside, and it is raining heavily against the window. The sky is lit by lightning, and once again Kathryn, my thoughts turn to you. 


End file.
